
FRANCESCO MASTRIANI
In the tranquil shade of a grand linden at Auteuil, brother and sister Auguste and Isalina d’Orbeil linger, their polished manners embodying the leisurely world of Parisian aristocracy. Auguste, a handsome yet haughty twenty‑four‑year‑old who despises poverty, clings to his privileged comforts, while his younger sister Isalina, an eighteen‑year‑old French beauty, revels in youthful pleasures and longs for a love delayed by his absence.
As summer wanes, rumors of marriage proposals, looming debts, and the expectations of high society press upon the siblings, testing Auguste’s rigid sense of honor and Isalina’s hopeful heart. A distant naval officer, Giustino Victor, appears as a possible match for Isalina, while Auguste’s restless pride threatens to clash with the more compassionate values of those around him, inviting listeners into a richly painted portrait of late‑eighteenth‑century French aristocracy where love, duty, and the ache of emerging adulthood intertwine.
Language
it
Duration
~9 hours (538K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Original publisher
Italy: Salvati, 1893.
Credits
Barbara Magni and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images made available by The Internet Archive)
Release date
2023-02-24
Rights
Public domain in the USA.
1819–1891
A pioneering voice of 19th-century Naples, he turned popular serial fiction into vivid stories about urban poverty, injustice, and everyday survival. His novels were widely read in their time and still stand out for their strong social feeling.
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